LeBron James finally became LeBron James. The previous season is complete. It’s now 2012-13 in the NBA, so let’s get at it. In the Western Conference, the front-runners from Oklahoma City have the three-time league scoring champ and a dude who scored the most points in an NBA Finals game since 2006. There also are the Clippers, who have arguably the league’s best point guard and a fellow all-star who’s a 20-10 guy. Yeah, the Lakers, Grizzlies and Spurs are hanging around, but I’d argue that the teams with the stellar young duos are going to be atop the conference for years to come.

So now we look at Denver, which finished sixth in the West last season while overcoming multiple injuries. The Nuggets have two guys that could become all-stars (Ty Lawson and Danilo Gallinari). And, yes, matchups are key in the playoffs, meaning what I’m about to say is not an exact science. But the Nuggets lost to the Lakers in seven games. The Lakers lost to the Thunder in five. Then the Thunder lost to the Heat in five.

So heading into the coming seasons, you can look at the Nuggets two ways:

1. They’re just treading water annually, making the playoffs but seldom making a playoff run.

2. They are growing numerous young players into formidable players — maybe not all-stars but, still, with their depth, the Nuggets should give a lot of teams trouble in the coming years.

I lean toward No. 2, with this caveat:

It’s possible the current Denver roster might never make the NBA Finals, but there are so many assets on the roster that the Nuggets’ front office is in a position to make a big trade for a star (who could possibly take them there).

It appears that the Nuggets will play out next season, seeing how the young team takes advantage of the full summer and training camp. The team will see if Lawson can take that next step into the point guard pantheon, if Gallinari can stay healthy and thrive, if JaVale McGee and Kenneth Faried can become a fearsome low-post duo. Maybe these Nuggets will make a push into the second round. Maybe they will even get the right matchup and get to the conference finals.

But if they don’t, the front office will consider making a big trade to shake things up. Here’s the thing: Coach George Karl talks about this all the time — he says that people use the label of “superstar” too casually. As we see in the postseason, there are only a handful of true superstars — men who have amazing talent and are able to lead their teams in the playoffs.

Right now, how many of those guys are even in the league? Five? What I’m getting at: Just because a team makes a big trade for a big name, it doesn’t automatically mean the team is a title contender. Remember how big a story it was when Carmelo Anthony was traded to the Knicks? Melo and Amar’e! Together! But they have won only one playoff game.

(Here’s a question for Nuggets fans: If you had a choice of having the current Denver team or having Carmelo back instead of Gallo, Wilson Chandler, Timofey Mozgov and, say, Andre Miller, which would you choose? You’d probably keep the current team, right?)

So even if you get a star player, is he a transcendent player? Those guys are hard to get. Either a team bottoms out and hits a draft grand slam with a Kevin Durant … or the team is in a major market, thus enticing a star player to take his talent there.

What the Nuggets could hope for is a Kevin Garnett-to-Boston situation, in which a star player wants out of his smaller market. The Nuggets will have enough assets to pull off a trade like that. But they won’t just do it to do it.

And so, for now, fans will get to watch the growth of the young Nuggets and see how Thunder-y they can be.

Benjamin Hochman was a sports columnist for The Denver Post until August 2015 before leaving for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his hometown newspaper. Hochman previously worked for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for its Hurricane Katrina coverage. Hochman wrote the Katrina-themed book “Fourth and New Orleans,” published in 2007.

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